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A watchdog group filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Senate Ethics Committee Wednesday against Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) over a discounted mortgage he received from Northern Trust.

Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, filed the report after The Washington Post reported that Obama received a discount on a mortgage for a Chicago home valued at $1.65 million. The complaints said the Illinois senator received a loan at the interest rate of 5.625 percent, which Judicial Watch says is lower than the standard rate of between 5.93 and 6 percent indicated by surveys.

The complaint asks the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate whether the favorable rates constitute a prohibited “gift” under Senate rules.

“It appears that due to his position as a U.S. senator, Barack Obama received improper special treatment from Northern Trust resulting in an illicit ‘gift’ which has a value of almost $125,000 in interest savings,” wrote Judicial Watch President Thomas Fitton in a letter to the Ethics Committee.

The complaint also notes that Northern Trust employees have given $71,000 in donations to Obama’s campaigns.

Very interesting. Who knows what else they'll dig up? Hope McCain wins so we don't have to go through his version of Whitewater for years. Of course, the attorneys will love all the work digging through his Chicago connections. I suspect it's more tangled than the Arkansas whiz kid's, Bubba.